AIB’S BOARD of directors was convincingly re-elected yesterday following a lengthy and tense annual meeting the bank’s Dublin headquarters in Ballsbridge.

The vote signals a respite of sorts for the group’s chief executive, Eugene Sheehy, chairman Dermot Gleeson and finance director John O’Donnell, who are all departing over coming months.

Mr Gleeson and Mr Sheehy in particular were the focus of considerable shareholder criticism at the meeting, which immediately followed an egm where the Government’s €3.5 billion recapitalisation of the bank was approved.

Mr Gleeson told about 1,000 shareholders gathered in the bank’s headquarters that the problems encountered by the bank were not due to a “single-factor event” but a mixture of drivers.

Veering between empathy and impatience as scores of shareholders had their say, Mr Gleeson heard one of those present, Eileen Magee, suggest that Irish banks needed more of a Presbyterian ethos, as appears to have worked well within banks in Canada.

We need more “temperate, moderate people with a strong ethical sense”, she said, contrasting this with “crazy builders who live not too far away from here”.

Ms Magee appeared resigned to her financial losses at this stage, having already seen investments in Anglo Irish Bank and Waterford Wedgwood wiped out.

Pádraig Ó Cleirigh, a pensioner, said that he didn’t think the board recognised the suffering felt by shareholders who had lost their life savings by investing in AIB.

He said that there were ladies in nursing homes who rely on the bank’s dividends for income and that they “may now be turfed out . . .Their dreams have been shattered with the loss of 90 per cent of the value of their shares over the years,” he said.

He said that the bank’s directors had a responsibility to people suffering as a result of their investments in AIB and asked what strategies the bank had to help them. “It is a form of rapacious greed you have succumbed to,” he said.

Mr Gleeson said there was “no scope” or “legal entitlement” for the bank to help shareholders who have suffered heavy losses. He said he was “simply unable to tell” when dividends might be paid again but that “we have to strengthen ourselves” before that could happen.

One shareholder called for more female directors who would be more thrifty in managing people’s money. Another attendee suggested that the bank be renamed “the 99 per cent bank” – reflecting both the shareholders’ vote in favour of recapitalisation and the approximate losses of the shareholders. He said the outcome of the recapitalisation vote was “like listening to the reports of elections in banana republics” and that AIB was “the bank of the banana republic of Ireland”.

Harry Boland, another investor in the bank, said it was “a huge disservice” that the full board was not present in front of shareholders.

Mr Gleeson later said it would not be appropriate for each director seeking re-election to make an individual presentation to shareholders on why they should vote for them.

He resisted numerous demands that board members in the crowd make presentations or even appear on the podium prior to the vote.

However, all the bank’s board members not on the podium later stood up as he introduced them.

One attendee wondered why shareholders should be paying “such exorbitant fees for such incompetence”. Another said that it had always been true that “boom is just postponed bad debt”.

Bankcentre, the bank’s headquarter building in Dublin 4, must be “top-heavy with people with not a lot to do,” mused one shareholder, as departures were vociferously requested.

Mr Gleeson accepted that there would be some “visceral satisfaction” in an “off with their heads” approach to the directors but he said the bank needed to be run.

Institutional shareholders carried the day, with all directors putting themselves forward for re-election successful. Mr Gleeson and Mr Sheehy were both re-elected by those representing 97.3 per cent of shares. Colm Doherty, head of AIB’s capital markets division and the only executive director due to remain, won a 98.1 per cent Yes vote.